Pa. Detectives `On Track' In Case

Family Of Missing Student Calls Outsiders In To Help

February 03, 1989|By RONNIE CROCKER Staff Writer

YORK — Three out-of-state detectives, hired to look into the disappearance of an area couple last spring, wrapped up their first on-site investigation Thursday confident they were on the right track for solving the mystery.

"We do feel we are moving basically in the right direction," said Arthur A. Beers, director of Commonwealth Investigation Agency of Allentown, Pa. He added, "It's not chiseled in granite. Things may flow in different directions."

But the FBI, which is in charge of the investigation, was less than enthusiastic about the presence of outsiders. Joe Wolfinger, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Norfolk office, said earlier he would not meet with the private investigators, explaining it was against FBI policy to share information with people outside the law-enforcement community.

"As long as they don't interfere or obstruct what we do, that's their business," Wolfinger said in his only comment on the investigators.

"We still have things we think are potentially fruitful," he said. "... We're the law-enforcement agency with the responsibility to solve the case."

Beers' firm often assists Children's Rights of Pennsylvania Inc., a non-profit organization that has located 270 missing children over the last five years. Although those cases usually involve parental abductions, the detectives each said Thursday their experience qualifies them for cases such as the mysterious disappearance of Sandra Hailey of Grafton, 19, and Keith Call of Gloucester, 20.

The two Christopher Newport College students left on their first date together April 9, and were last seen later that night at a party at University Square Apartments in Newport News. Call's 1982 Toyota was found abandoned alongside the Colonial Parkway the next morning. The driver's side door was open, the keys were lying on the front seat and several articles of clothing were found in the back.

The private company was retained with money raised by friends of Sandra Hailey's mother, Joanne Hailey. Mrs. Hailey said the detectives are working only for expenses since they were referred by Children's Rights, but she said their four-day trip this week exhausted the fund. Both she and the detectives said they hoped to continue the investigation.

The three men arrived Monday and spent their time exploring the site where the car was found and interviewing people who knew the students and who saw them the night of the party. Beers would not comment on the details of what was uncovered, but detectives Anthony B. Padrone and Eric W. Horvath each said they were confident the case could be solved.

Hailey said she, too, was pleased with the detectives' work this week. She led them on a tour of the areas related to the case, and said the experience made her feel something was being accomplished.

In the past, Hailey family members have complained that the FBI, which has jurisdiction in the case because the parkway is federally owned, stonewalled them by not keeping them better apprised of detailed information gathered in its investigation. For that reason, she said, she doesn't know if the private investigators turned up anything new.

"If the FBI has done it, they haven't told me," Hailey said.

Beers, who consulted with the York County Sheriff's Department but not the FBI, was more sympathetic to the bureau. A police veteran of 20 years, Beers said he did not wish to second-guess the initial investigators. "We're not Monday-morning quarterbacking anybody," he said.

The detectives said they will take the information they gathered here home and analyze it there. Beers said they will share any new information they have with the law-enforcement agencies now on the case.

The private investigators are not the first outsiders to be called on for help. Dorothy Allison, a New Jersey psychic who travels nationwide helping find and solve cases involving missing children, provided the York Sheriff's Department with several leads. The FBI also refused that information.

Meanwhile, interested people can send donations to the Hailey Hope Fund at P.O. Box 1531, Grafton, 23692. Anyone with information about the case may call the Hailey-Call Benefit Hotline at 898-HOPE.